Resource vs. Regulation: A General Assembly Choice

“Yes, we too are having to make cuts.” The pastor smiled at us around the lunch table. “But you know it probably helps us to focus on things that really count.” He spoke of mission trips, Stephen ministries, and Christian education for members. “We just have to tell the story well. What the money can do.”

Precisely.

Looking forward to the meeting of the General Assembly Council in September, I had hoped to represent the Presbyterian seminaries with a voice about opportunities for closer partnerships. The seminaries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) offer educational experiences for those who lead the church, degree programs for those who will lead the church in the future, and generally provide resources for every congregation and governing body.

The General Assembly is supposed to be a resource for congregations, the seminary presidents had thought, and we might be able to help more in that mission. The 10 of us, with our two covenant colleagues making 12, serve schools that regularly teach Bible, theology, Christian history, ethics, pastoral care, preaching, entering into ministry, Christian education, stewardship, missions and lots more. Members of our faculties and student bodies help lead congregations and governing bodies all the time.

Another location in the organization of the General Assembly would afford better occasions for seminaries assisting in Worldwide Ministries, National Ministries, and Congregational Ministries. When the PC(USA) formed in 1983, a Committee on Theological Education (COTE) was located in the “hierarchy” as an “associated body,” related to all the mission areas of denominational life. In 1986, the GA said that the COTE was to “report directly to the General Assembly.” But subsequently, in a re-organization, COTE had been located rather remotely in the structure of the Congregational Ministries bureaucracy, where some of the talents and programs of seminaries lie — some, but not most.

Imagine my surprise when I learned right before the September GAC meeting that the major agenda item before them was an “assessment” on “special offerings.” Further, as defined by Mission Support Services, the budget and finance division of the Assembly, the 5 percent “tax” for supporting GAC salaries and programs, would be levied on all restricted giving. In the TEF, we already pay GAC for their bookkeeping, and we pay the costs of alerting congregations to the opportunity for giving. We even pay for some office expenses. This tax would be on top of all that.

An elder, Bruce Hendrickson of Nebraska, who chaired this committee, explained to me that the GA received insufficient unrestricted giving today. He acted as if I should support the motion. So did several of the other members of the committee. GA needed more unrestricted money, so they would take some of the funds given for particular purposes and they would use them to supplement their unrestricted money. Some members of GAC complained that I was “lobbying” against meeting the needs of the church.

I showed the members of the committee the findings of the committee that had reported to the GA of 1986, in which the Assembly was to support theological education and the seminaries were to teach good Presbyterian theological education. “Is this taxing the seminaries, taking from the Theological Education Fund (‘1 Percent Plan’), supporting seminaries?” I asked, somewhat rhetorically. “Rather, it seems taking from restricted giving for one set of institutions to meet the need for unrestricted money in another. It seems to break faith with the original agreement.”

The pastors and educators around our lunch table listened politely to my story of frustration — going to the GAC with a constructive proposal only to be confronted with a new hurdle to partnership — the proposal to tax restricted giving to seminaries for keeping GAC solvent.

“You know,” another in the group told me. “I find the temptation to regulate giving a strong one, too. But my session simply won’t let it happen. When people give for Habitat, it goes to Habitat.”

I had recounted almost the same thing at the meeting. When someone gives us $1000 for a student scholarship, the student gets $1000. We have had to cut the seminary budget in lean years. I dearly wish someone among us had dreamed Pharaoh’s dream a few years ago, for now we know Joseph’s interpretation. In recent years, three lean cows have eaten five fat cows! All of us are finding ways to reduce expenses. At Union-PSCE, senior administration and faculty took no raise last year, so those who received less could at least get some increment.

And almost all of us in the continental USA live well, indeed, in comparison with our Christian sisters and brothers in church leadership and seminary.

Looking back at the Minutes of the 1986 General Assembly, I see that “The Committee’s (COTE) operating budget shall be funded from the General Assembly mission budget.” In other words, GA would be a resource helping seminaries relate, and bringing them into coordinated work with the GA, to whom they would report.

So I suppose the choice for GAC now is whether to continue to provide some resources for linking seminaries to the GA, or whether they want to be a regulatory agency taking the resources people give for seminary support and diverting them in a tax to run their own offices and accomplish the tasks before them.